


did you fall? (no, I attacked the floor)

by DreamBrother



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: 5+1 Things, First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, POV Danny "Danno" Williams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:42:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24171505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamBrother/pseuds/DreamBrother
Summary: When Steve starts falling for Danny, he *literally* starts falling for him.A 5+1 fic set in the early days.
Relationships: Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams
Comments: 57
Kudos: 374





	did you fall? (no, I attacked the floor)

**Author's Note:**

> I've been waiting to write a fluff piece for absolute ages, and this FINALLY came together in my mind. It also marks my very first 5+1 fic, and my first fic from Danny's point of view. 
> 
> It's set in some vague early time in season 1, but I play fast and loose with canon and history (such as the release date for Fifty Shades of Grey). But if Lenkov can ignore ten years of canon, so can I. 
> 
> Be warned, this is cheese on a platter.

Danny liked to think he was an observant guy. No, scratch that, he was a _very_ observant guy. It's what made him pretty okay at his day job, and pretty damn good as a father. So maybe he wasn't the most observant when his marriage was going to shit, but he only had two eyes and he couldn't win them all.

Which is why when he sees Steve acting… not very hooyah Navy SEAL... it throws up all sorts of red flags in Danny’s mind. 

Because the thing is, no matter what cracks he makes about the military, be it army or navy or whatever branch of the American armed forces which train you to throw a guy into a shark cage, or drive a motorcycle up a set of stairs to confront a group of armed men without backup, they know how to make lean, mean killing machines. Except okay, Steve isn't mean, no man who bought a guy’s daughter (who he hadn't even met) three nights at a hotel so she could swim with dolphins could be mean. And okay, Steve isn't a machine, no matter how much he tries to go all dead-eyed when even the vaguest hint of emotion or vulnerability comes up. 

But he is lean. He can kill. And his body is a textbook example for strength, agility, stamina, and all those other things the Olympics were created for. And Danny observed these things day in, day out when they were on the field together. 

Which is why it made absolutely no fucking sense when he also observed Steve to be the most god awful clumsiest man on the planet. 

* * *

**1**

  
The first time Danny notices anything off, it's nothing major. It's just after six o'clock on a random Friday and he's steadily working his way through the stack of paperwork on his desk, with the aim that if he finishes this lot today, he should be able to sleep in tomorrow morning before he goes to pick up Grace from Rachel's, assuming no new cases. 

Chin and Kono had knocked on his office door in goodbye as they'd left about half an hour ago and he'd waved to them even as he'd carried on working. He's almost done with the form that will result in him being reimbursed for the number of snacks he had to purchase to keep Toast happy and functioning during their case last week when his computer skills had made all the difference between solving their case and it becoming a cold case when he heard a knock on his door followed by a thump and a muttered curse. 

Danny looks up and immediately frowns.

"Did you just walk straight into my door?" 

It will be a cold day in hell before the thought that Steve looks sort of adorable with his scrunched up face, hand rubbing his nose, looking like a puppy who'd just realized that running full tilt into the glass door separating the house from the backyard is not a wise move.

"Yeah. Ouch. That hurt." 

"What, they forget to program how to open doors like a normal person into you when you went to GI Joe camp?"

Danny has to bite back a smile as his crack against the Navy is met without a correction.

"Whatever. You done?" Steve drops his hand away from his nose and crosses his arms across his chest, probably hoping the bulge of his biceps will make Danny forget that the scoring system as it currently stands is Glass Door 1, Steve McGarrett 0. 

"Depends."

"Depends on what."

"On what you're offering if I am done."

"Steak. Mash. Beer. My place."

"Done. Done. And done." Danny scribbles his signature on the reimbursement form, shoves it into a folder, shoves the folder into the out tray. He can deal with the rest tomorrow morning, he can wake up early and get the groceries done after he's finished up the paperwork, drop them off home before going to get Grace. "Let's go."

Steve holds the door open for Danny as he walks out and together they hit the lights, lock up behind them and walk out of Iolani Palace towards the parking lot, Steve's truck parked next to Danny's Camaro. 

"What would you have said if I'd offered salad and a smoothie?" Steve asks as he digs into his cargo pants for his car keys and pressed the unlock button. 

"You're a smart man, McGarrett, you wouldn't have offered that to me in a million years," Danny replied with a wide grin, laughing as Steve opens the door but he's standing too close and it scrapes his nose. "Jesus, will you be okay to drive?"

The look Steve shoots him is annoyed, but Danny is confident it's aimed mostly at the man himself rather than at Danny. 

"Shut up, Grandpa, try and get to my place before New Year's okay? I'll drive slow, just for you." 

"Some of us like to use all four wheels on their car, you maniac!" Danny yells but all he gets in response is Steve's hand doing a weird gesture through the window of his car as he squeals his way out of the parking lot. 

* * *

**2**

The next time Steve's clumsiness pings Danny's radar is a few weeks later and much like last time, it's a Friday evening and Danny has followed Steve home for dinner, except this time Danny had gone via the grocery story before showing up at Steve's. He'd made Steve show off his knife skills and put him in charge of chopping a fuckload of onions (and okay, fine, he got a perverse sense of pleasure of watching a badass Navy SEAL sniff and cry his way through peeling and dicing those tasty but evil buggers) before he'd whipped up a big pot of his grandmother’s risotto. 

In exchange for feeding Steve a meal that didn't involve throwing a slab of meat onto open fire or calling up a business and relaying credit card information over a non-secure line, Steve had taken charge of washing up the dishes. 

Except Danny was still in the mood for something sweet, so he digs into his back pocket for the lollipop Grace had bestowed upon him when he'd dropped her off to school this morning, using his hands to boost himself on to the counter next to the sink before he unwraps the paper covering and pops the candy into his mouth. 

"... But if the weather's good, we can maybe hike the trail at- what's that?" Steve looks up from where he is scouring the cast iron pan and zeroes in on Danny's mouth. 

"What's what?" Danny asks as he pulls said lollipop out of his mouth and peers closely at the color variations to guess what flavors to expect once he gets past the strawberry top layer.

"That." Steve nods his head in the direction of Danny's hand before reaching for a plate from the pile of dirty crockery. 

"It's a lollipop. Grace gave to me this morning, she got two yesterday from her teacher for being the only kid in class to help clean up at the end of their lesson, and she saved one for me. What, they not reward you with lollipops each time you disassemble and assemble an AK-47 with a blindfold on, hand tied behind your back and fire ants crawling up your ass?" Danny smirked before giving the candy a big lick. 

Steve's response was lost in the loud clatter of the plate slipping from his fingers, knocking into the hard edge of the sink and shattering into pieces. 

"Ow, fuck!" Steve curses, moving to shove his cut and bleeding finger into his mouth but Danny, hardened by years of watching Grace like a hawk especially when she first started crawling, then toddling, grips his wrist in a flash and prevents it. 

"What are you, a child? You do not expose an open cut to the bacteria in your mouth. Jesus, my nine-year-old has more sense than you," Danny starts rambling as he hopped off the counter whilst maintaining an iron grip on Steve's wrist, the lollipop stuck to the inside of one cheek as he speaks around it. "Knowing you, you probably have a military-grade first aid kit somewhere. Where is it?"

"I'm fine, Danno," Steve grumbles even as he reaches out with his free hand and turns off the running tap. 

"If by fine you mean Grandma McGarrett is going to haunt your ass for breaking one of the plates she was given as part of her wedding dowry back in 1890, then yeah, you're fine," Danny shoots back as he starts tugging Steve out of the kitchen and towards the stairs. He is willing to bet top dollar, and half of Gracie's as yet meager college fund, that the first aid kit is located in the main bathroom. 

"Hey, what have you got against my plates?"

"What do you mean, your plates? When have you ever bought plates in your life? What, do SEALs go on excursions to IKEA between missions?" 

Their bickering about what SEALs do, and don't do ("It's classified, Danny") sees them through Danny disinfecting and bandaging the gash on Steve's finger before they go back to the kitchen and Danny shows Steve how a simple chore like washing the dishes can be done without bloodshed and mayhem. 

* * *

**3**

  
It’s a Saturday night, Danny’s weekend with Grace, and it’s the first time Danny’s agreed to Steve’s suggestion that the two Williams come over to the McGarrett home for a day of the beach (Grace), swimming (Grace and Steve), sandcastle building (Steve and Grace), beer (Danny, mainly) followed by a dinner of pizza and ice cream and an evening of movie and popcorn. 

“Hey, McGarrett, how many SEALs does it take to make a bowl of popcorn? Grace is going to be old enough to watch Fifty Shades at the rate you’re going.”

“Hold your horses!” Steve calls from the kitchen, agitation in his voice, and a thumping sound which must be the other man thinking that hitting the ancient microwave will terrify it into working. A moment later a distinct humming sound emits from the direction of the kitchen, suggesting even household appliances, not just the low-life criminals of Oahu, wilter under a McGarrett glare and threat of violence.

“What’s Fifty Shades, Danno?”

Fuck. “Uhhh, It’s a film, monkey, about a man painting a wall with fifty different shades of grey paint and watching it dry.”

He holds back a smile as Grace’s face crinkles. “Why would anyone want to watch a film about that?”

“Exactly, monkey, only very silly people watch that film,” Danny says, before calling out to his partner again before Grace can ask any more questions. “Steve!” 

“Alright, alright, cool your jets, popcorn’s coming,” replies the other man as he walks out of the kitchen, two big bowls of popcorn in his hands. Danny and Grace turn to watch his approach with matching grins of their face, popcorn a shared addiction between father and daughter.

“Yay! Uncle Steve, you’re the best!” Before Danny can in any way, shape, or form, respond to his daughter’s unexpected and very much not discussed attribution of the title of ‘uncle’ to his work partner, the man in question reacts in the oddest of ways. 

In the space of about two seconds, Steve freezes, a look of surprise on his face before it morphs into a look of a kid experiencing their first taste of ice cream except the look only lasts for a second before Steve’s next step has him slipping on God knows what and both man, bowls and popcorn are airborne, man and bowls meeting the floor with a hard crash, neither shattering into pieces because the man is made of muscle, the bowl of plastic thankfully, with the popcorn falling around Steve’s horizontal figure like some twisted Hawaiian version of snowfall. 

For a long moment, nothing in the McGarrett house moves. Even the dust motes are frozen in the air, surprised at the spectacle they’ve just witnessed. A bird dares to cheep from the tree outside the front door, probably a mama bird telling off the humans for disrupting the sleep of its young ones with the racket they’ve caused. 

Grace is the first to move, turning to look at her father with a look of horror on her face, and it’s enough for Danny to not burst into laughter, keeping it inside him as any good father who wants to teach his kid good manners ought to. Nudging Grace off the sofa, both make their way over to their fallen friend, stepping carefully to prevent crunching any popcorn under their feet. 

When Steve opens his eyes, it’s to twin looks of amusement, the younger Williams clearly the more empathetic of the two although there is more sympathy in Danny’s eyes than he expects. 

“Uncle Steve? Are you okay?” Grace asks, concern evident in her voice, and Danny doesn’t know how she could be his when she glares at him for reaching out and grabbing a fistful of clean popcorn off Steve’s chest and popping it into his mouth. 

“What? It’s bad to waste food, monkey,” mumbles Danny through a mouthful of salty popcorn as Steve casts a glare in his direction before he turns to look at Danny’s daughter with a look of absolute but confused adoration on his face.

“I’m okay, Gracie, thank you. I’m sorry about the popcorn.”

“It’s okay, Uncle Steve, I’m not a big fan of popcorn anyway,” Grace replies, and Danny makes a mental note that his angel of a daughter is able to lie through her teeth with absolute sincerity in her voice and facial expression. He adds ‘teach Grace poker’ to their list of activities for tomorrow. 

“Really? Danno said it’s your favorite snack,” Steve replies, his brows furrowed, even as he makes no motion to get off the floor. Danny reaches out and grabs a fistful from the pile on Steve’s stomach, his knuckles brushing against Steve’s abs. Hmm, sweet popcorn. 

“No, that’s shave ice now,” Grace shakes her head, her pigtails swinging at the motion. “Can we grab some tomorrow since we won’t have popcorn tonight?” Oh, his daughter is good. He’s definitely teaching her blackjack too. 

“Of course, Gracie, my treat.” 

“Great!” Grace’s smile is contagious and both men smile in response even as Danny uses Steve’s distraction to reach for the popcorn nestled in the indent between Steve’s thigh and crotch. “Where do you keep your broom, Uncle Steve?”

“Oh no, kiddo, I’ll clean up, it’s my fault,” Steve shakes his head, his eyes never moving from Grace’s as his hand flies out and grabs Danny’s wrist before his hand can make contact with the popcorn. “But can you go grab it for me, sweetie? It’s in the cupboard next to the fridge.”

Grace runs off to grab the broom and Steve turns his head to glare at Danny. 

“Thanks for your concern, partner. You know, I could have crushed my skull and be dying of a brain bleed and you’d still be munching popcorn off my body.”

Danny grins and twists his hand in Steve’s grip so that his fingers wrap around Steve in a fireman’s grip, pulling until Steve is off the floor and standing, popcorn cascading off his body and falling around their feet like edible crunchy petals. “Oh no, I know how hard your head is, I was more concerned you’d leave a hole in your nice wooden floors.”

“Nice to know you care for my floors over me.”

“Oh don’t get me wrong babe, I care for you plenty. My concern for your floors is an offshoot of my care for you.”

Steve’s fingers flex on Danny’s wrist, his grip tightening for a long moment as he looks into Danny’s eyes for long enough for a frisson of what must be concern ignites in Danny’s chest that maybe Steve did hurt his head when he fell, except before it can go any further Steve is yanking his hand back and turning to take the broom off of Grace as she runs back into the room. 

* * *

**4**

  
It’s been an awful fucking ten days. Ten days of the whole team running ragged, chasing one useless lead after another with the governor breathing down their necks for answers as to why five tourists have ended up dead outside five different nightclubs in the space of one week. Except Five-O have yet again proven to the governor, the taxpayer, and maybe even to Kane himself why they are an elite task force. With the murderer sitting behind bars awaiting trial in Halawa, Steve insists on a team lunch at Kamekona’s before they all disappear into their homes and sleep for the next two days. 

Steve, Chin, and Kono are sitting around one of the tables in front of the shrimp truck when Danny finishes giving the order on behalf of the whole team and steps away to call Grace as Rachel drives her from school to the club for her tennis lesson. By the time he hangs up, one of Kamekona’s staff is walking away having just placed plates of food in front of his team who don’t even wait for the boy to walk away before they start attacking the shrimp with their plastic forks as though the food is manna from heaven. Steve’s position as head of the task force counts for next to nothing as Chin and Kono attack with the finesse that comes from a childhood filled with fighting over food at a dining table surrounded by many many cousins and relatives. 

Tucking his phone into his pocket, Danny ambles over hoping he won’t just be left with scraps as he swings his legs over the wooden bench and takes a seat next to Steve, their shoulders bumping together. 

“Woah woah woah, guys, I’m pretty sure Kamekona isn’t running out of shrimp anytime soon.”

“Your garlic shrimp is gonna be another two minutes,” Steve says around a mouthful of food, giving Danny an up-close view of masticated crustaceans covered in lemon and butter. 

“Great,” says Danny, before reaching for a fork and placing his hand on Steve’s thigh for balance, he reaches up and out of his seat to spear a particularly juicy piece of shrimp off Kono’s plate. 

“Hey!” come twin cries from Kono and Steve and Danny hasn’t even had the chance to shove the shrimp in his mouth before Steve jerks under Danny’s hand and then before anyone is the wiser, a plate with some shrimp, salad leaves, and plenty of lemon and butter sauce is upturned and in Steve’s lap. 

The lack of reaction from all four members of Five-O is a testament to their exhaustion from the case they’ve just finished, and the liquid continues to seep through Steve’s cargo pants. 

“Oh no bruddah, that’s not something you can wipe away.” The four look up and see Kamekona standing at the head of the table, Danny’s plate of garlic shrimp in his hands. 

“These were my favorite pants,” is all Steve has to say, and the expression on his face is so forlorn that even Danny feels a nudge of sympathy for the demise of his partner’s cargoes, even though he can’t fathom how they’re any different to the ten other pants Steve owns in the exact same style and color. 

“Come with me,” Kamekona jerks his thumb towards his shrimp truck even as he places Danny’s order down in front of him. 

“Sorry babe,” Danny says, even though he’s not sure how he’s at fault, but he also doesn’t want Steve thinking revenge is a dish best served as garlic shrimp on Danny’s lap, and he helps Steve get up from the table by righting the plate and scooping the fallen shrimp off Steve’s crotch. 

Kamekona and Steve are away for long enough that Danny is almost done with his order save for the few pieces of the nicest looking shrimp that he’s reserving for his partner when first Kono, then Chin, burst into laughter as they look over Danny’s shoulder. 

Curious, Danny looks over and promptly bursts into laughter as well. 

Because there stands Steve, in the same shirt he started the morning off with, except that’s where the normality ends. For covering his waist to his knees, what takes attention away from the blush on his cheeks, are the most garish pair of board shorts Danny has ever seen. 

A bright pink to which even Grace would say, “Thanks, but no thanks,” with neon green drawstrings, the color choices are bad enough but Steve is handsome enough to pull that off.

But even the most handsome man on earth, even Adonis himself, would not be able to pull off bright pink board shorts with neon green drawstrings which have a lifesize cartoon face of Kamekona directly over the crotch, with smaller faces covering the thighs. 

Steve waits for the laughter to end before he grits out: “If I ever hear any of you mention this to anyone, ever, after this, I will make you work weekends for the rest of your natural life.” 

Chastened, Chin, and Kono look down at their near-empty plates to hide their smirks. Danny, on the other hand, brazenly pulls out his phone and tapping on the right app, brings his phone up, and quite obviously takes a photo. 

“Danny!” Steve snaps, but Danny is unfazed.

“What? You said don’t mention it, you didn’t say we couldn’t take photographic evidence to commemorate what is probably the best moment in my life after Grace’s birth.”

If someone had told Danny last year that he would have a decorated military officer stare at him with death in his eyes, and he’d just smile in response, he would have thought they were crazy, except this is Danny’s life now, and his partner. Steve couldn’t harm a hair on Danny’s head, and they both know it.

With a huff, his face almost as pink as his shorts, Steve shakes his head and makes his way back to the table, taking his seat next to Danny again who slides over the shrimp he reserved for his partner. The pleased and surprised look on Steve’s face makes up for the fact that Danny will be making himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when he gets home. 

And then the third best moment of Danny’s life occurs ten minutes later when they all make to leave, Steve walking towards the car, revealing Kamekona’s face printed on the material covering each butt cheek. 

* * *

**5**

  
It’s a month later, and Mary is in town to visit her brother, for once arriving on the islands without being arrested on the flight over. Circumstances work their magic, and the sun is setting around them as the team and both McGarrett's sit around a table at the Sky Bar, drinking beers and cocktails, and talk is turning to Kono and Mary’s swapping stories of the ridiculous things some of the guys they’ve dated have done. Chin, having recently rekindled things with Malia, is observing proceedings with the silent smugness of someone who’s off the market and deeply in love, except no one has the heart to begrudge him his happiness after all he and Malia have been through. 

Mary once again proves to be the fun McGarrett, but Danny has two sisters so he knows to be wary when she turns to him with a mischievous look on her face, almost unconsciously pushing into Steve’s side for support as he waits to see what trouble she’s about to cause. 

“So, Danny, enough about the jackasses Kono and I fall for. Tell us, what’s your type?”

Danny takes a sip of beer, glad that the question isn’t as bad as he was expecting. He remains pressed against Steve though, in case his sister prefers a more subtle attack method. Steve hasn’t shifted away from Danny’s weight, so he figures it's okay. 

“Hmm, probably brunette, if past dating experience is to count for anything. Sassy, clever, brunettes.” Danny winks at Steve to give him a head’s up before turning to Mary. “Why, were you hoping I was going to say blonde, tendency to get arrested for smoking in banned areas?” he teases. 

Mary laughs with a slight blush, and Steve doesn’t wrap his around Danny’s throat in a deadly chokehold for flirting with his sister, so Danny chalks it up as a win. “No, actually, you said exactly what I hoped you would.” Before Danny can even begin to parse what she might mean by that, Mary is looking away from him to her brother, a smirk on her face, and then there’s a thump and Steve cursing as his fallen beer bottle begins spilling liquid on the table. Thankfully there wasn’t much left so there’s no risk of the liquid seeping over the edge of the table and soaking their pants. 

“Fuck’s sake. I’ll go get some napkins,” Steve mutters as he gets up from the table and goes to hunt down a waiter. It’s a busy night, and there are enough customers around to flirt the thin line between crowded and overcrowded, so Danny knows he won’t be back immediately. 

Taking the opportunity, Danny reaches out for Mary’s hand to grab her attention, asking her the question that’s been plaguing him for months. “Finally. Mary, I have to ask, how the fuck is your brother so clumsy? Was he always like this?”

Mary’s smile fades as she looks at Danny, askance. Chin and Kono also pause in their side conversation. “Danny, what?”

“Steve. He’s so clumsy. Not on the job but seriously, the number of times he’s broken a plate, or walked into doorways, or dropped food on his lap. How did he even survive childhood, is what I want to know.”

“Danny… Steve’s not clumsy,” Mary replies, glancing at Chin and Kono before looking at Danny again, a bemused smile on her face. “He’s a trained military officer, I’m pretty sure he’d have been kicked out in the first week if he was clumsy.”

Danny concedes the point. “Yeah, okay, he’s not clumsy all the time, he’s RoboCop on the field. But off the field, he’s a fucking mess. Right, guys?” Danny looks to Kono and Chin for support but both are looking at him with identical amused smiles on their faces. 

“Sorry brah, never seen Steve be clumsy,” Kono says with a shrug. “He’s pretty smooth.”

“I’m with Kono on this one. The only time I can remember is when he spilled that plate of shrimp when we all had lunch after the Garrison case,” Chin adds. 

Before Danny can pinpoint the, by now, many many instances of Steve being butter-fingered, Mary bursts into laughter. 

“Oh my god, Danny, you just reminded me of something from when Steve and I were in high school.”

“What?”

Mary looks to see where Steve is but finding him nowhere near, she leans over the table towards Danny. “I was friends with this girl, Melissa, and she told me when we were in the ninth grade that her sister, Christina, got banned from going to Kukui High’s football games and practices.”

“Okay…” Danny’s not sure how this is relevant to his valid concern that Steve might have been hit hard enough and often enough on the head to impact his hand-eye coordination, but he’s willing to wait it out. 

“And then the year after, Steve and Christina started dating. She was his first big crush, his first relationship. I think they dated until he got shipped out to the mainland.” The reminder of the events which led to Steve and Mary being sent away from home casts a shadow in Mary’s eyes and Danny reaches out and squeezes her hand in silent support. 

“Okay. But I’m still not getting what that has to with Steve not being able to keep a hold of a beer bottle even before we’ve gotten to the second round.”

“Oh Danny,” Mary says, her turn to tap Danny’s hand. “The reason Christina got banned from watching Kukui High’s games and practices was because if Steve saw her, he would start dropping the ball and falling all over the place. She used to go all the time because she loved football, but Steve only started messing up when he started liking her. The coach noticed the pattern after they lost three games in a row. They started winning again once Christina agreed to stop coming, and Steve stopped fumbling like a goofy idiot.”

Right. 

Okay. 

Oh. 

_Oh._

Steve chooses that moment to return with a big wad of napkins. 

* * *

**+1**

For once, it’s just Steve, and Danny, sitting on the two wooden chairs on the private strip of beach behind the McGarrett house, enjoying the peace and quiet of watching the sunset on a hard, but ultimately rewarding, day. 

Just when the bottom of the sun touches the horizon, Danny plucks up the courage to broach the topic he’s mulled over for the past week. 

“It was really great spending time with your sister.”

“Yeah, especially since I didn’t have to bail her out for once.”

“Always a bonus,” Danny agrees. “Plus she filled in a bit of the mystery of what a teenage Steve McGarrett was like.”

“Oh yeah? I don’t remember this.”

“You’d gone to get napkins to clear up your beer spill, that night we went to Sky.”

“Did she tell you about the time I first got drunk and my dad found me sleeping it off in the Marquis?”

Danny is glad to see that the mention of his murdered dad doesn’t fully wipe off the smirk of his partner’s face. Satisfied that he isn’t bringing forth old ghosts with this line of questioning, he adds: “No, although that I have to hear. No, she told me about Christina.”

Steve looks towards him, his brows furrowed. “Christina? My first girlfriend? Why was she telling you about her?”

“Well not so much about her, as the fact that apparently you get super clumsy when you start liking someone.”

If Danny wasn’t as observant as he was, and if Danny hadn’t made it his life’s mission to observe, categories and note every twitch, facial expression and tell that Steve had, then he would have missed it.

Except Danny _was_ as observant as he was, and Danny _had_ made it his life’s mission to observe, categories and note every twitch, facial expression and tell that Steve had, so he didn’t miss the slight flash of panic on his partner’s face before the man stood up and turned towards the house.

“Imma go get more beers,’ Steve announced, but he only made it two steps before Danny’s foot shot out and tripped him up, causing Steve to land face-first into the sand. Just as Steve had finished turning around so he could lay on his back, spitting out the sand that had gotten into his mouth, Danny was, quite literally, atop him. As in, straddling Steve’s torso to prevent him from moving.

“Danny, what the actual fuck?”

“Have you fallen for me?” Danny asks, his hands on Steve’s shoulders as he tries to keep the bulk off his weight off Steve’s chest. It wouldn’t do to suffocate the man when Danny was trying to get answers out of him. 

“I think you’ll find I’ve fallen because of you. Dick move, buddy.”

“Don’t be a smartass. True or false, have you fallen for me?” Danny tries again. Steve’s expression takes on that look he sometimes has when he’s trying to look all cool, calm and collected when really he’s freaking the fuck out inside. It’s oddly similar to the first time Grace had been upset over the older brother dying in Big Hero Six and had wrapped her arms around Steve’s waist for comfort even as tears had streamed down her face, Danny having walked out of the bathroom to see this spectacle. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Danny.”

“Fine. I get it. You’re feeling vulnerable right now because your sister’s told me one of your tells for when you like someone. It’s only fair you know the same about me,” Danny offers. “So ask me.”

“Ask you what?” When Danny only quirks an eyebrow, Steve rolls his eyes and relents. “Fine, Danny, what are your tells when you like someone?”

“Well,” Danny starts, fighting against the cold lump in his stomach to get the next words out. “It depends on the person, really. With Rachel, she knew I liked her because instead of giving her a ticket for hitting my police car, I offered her driving lessons. But lately, I think my tells are letting someone else drive my car, share my weekends with my daughter, share some of the food off my plate, make them my grandmother’s special riso-”

Danny’s words are cut off as the world turns upside down for a moment and his back thumps against warm sand, a blur of limbs and sky as a weight settles on his chest, and Steve’s face hovering over his own, a mad grin on his partner’s face.

“The answer is true,” Steve says. 

“True what?” asks Danny stupidly, his mind still catching up with how Steve could have possibly turned them so quickly. Fucking navy and their fucking ninja techniques. 

“It’s true, I’ve fallen for you,” Steve’s grin gentles into a bashful smile. “In more ways than one.”

“You've fallen for me,” Danny repeats, a growing smile on his face as Steve shifts his hips downwards so his weight is resting in between Danny’s legs as opposed to on his torso.

“Yes.”

“Literally.”

“Yes.”

“Metaphorically.”

“Yes, Danno, metaphorically too,” Steve admits, rolling his eyes. 

Danny grins. “Smooth dog, my ass,” and he reaches up and yanks Steve down into the first of many kisses. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope that made you smile! As always, your comments are love on a platter.


End file.
